Powerful Pipes, Weak Oversight
First in a four-part series.
WAYNESBURG, Pa. - Through the hilly fields here in southwestern Pennsylvania, crews worked for months this year, cutting a trench through woods and past farms for a new natural gas pipeline.
Like many other lines crisscrossing the state's Marcellus Shale regions, this pipe was big - a high-pressure steel line, 20 inches in diameter, large enough to help move a buried ocean of natural gas out of this corner of the state. It was also plenty big enough to set off a sizable explosion if something went wrong.
There was trouble on the job. Far too many of the welds that tied the pipe sections together were failing inspection and had to be done over.
A veteran welder, now an organizer for a national pipeline union, happened upon the line and tried to blow the whistle on what he considered substandard work.
But there was no one to call.
Pennsylvania's regulators don't handle those pipelines, and acknowledge they don't even know where they are. And when he reported what he saw to a federal oversight agency, an inspector told him there was nothing he could do, either.
Because the line was in a rural area, no safety rules applied.
"It's crazy," said Terry Langley, the union official, worried that any problems would literally be buried. "It seems to me that everyone is turning a blind eye."
In Pennsylvania's shale fields, where the giant Marcellus strike has unleashed a furious surge of development, many natural gas pipelines today get less safety regulation than in any other state in America, an Inquirer review shows.
Hundreds of miles of high-pressure pipelines already have been installed in the shale fields with no government safety checks - no construction standards, no inspections, and no monitoring.
"No one - and absolutely no one - is looking," said Deborah Goldberg, a lawyer with Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm focusing on the environment.
Belatedly, the state's elected officials and regulators are trying to catch up. The legislature is poised to give the state Public Utility Commission authority to enforce federal safety rules in the shale regions, as in other gas-producing states.
Still, because of a long-standing gap in the federal rules - the same issue that affected the line near Waynesburg - the new law would leave many gas pipelines unregulated over vast swaths of rural Pennsylvania, especially in the very shale regions that are ground zero for pipeline construction.
These new Marcellus Shale "gathering" pipelines that connect to the wells are going unregulated, even though they are large-diameter, high-pressure pipes - as powerful and potentially dangerous as the transmission lines that cut across the continent.
Although accidents in natural gas pipelines are rare, they can be devastating. Last year, 21 people died and 105 were hurt in 230 gas-line accidents in the United States, according to federal data, the highest death total in a decade.
This year, 16 people have died in gas explosions, including five people in Allentown and one in Philadelphia. The accidents in this region were all due to failures in old cast-iron pipelines, not the type of lines being installed in the shale regions.
Drilling and pipeline companies say the new generation of steel lines has never been safer. They say they have a huge financial stake in making sure the lines don't leak, and are building the pipes to meet federal standards - whether or not the rules require it.
"We're all about making sure we have safe and reliable operations in the commonwealth," said David J. Spigelmyer, vice president of Chesapeake Energy and the new chairman of the Marcellus Shale Coalition trade group.
And the industry notes that there are relatively few reports of accidents in gathering lines, and none so far in Pennsylvania.
As for the line near Waynesburg, its owner, Consol Midstream, said it also identified flawed welds, caught by independent inspectors hired by the firm. Consol fired welders and made repairs.
By using a stronger grade of steel and examining all welds, Consol ensured that the pipeline exceeded federal requirements, according to the company, a major coal and gas producer based outside Pittsburgh.
"While we are not required to do this, we felt it was very important to employ additional oversight and inspection services than is customary to protect our and the public's best interest," Joe Fink, Consol's manager, said in an e-mail.
An increasing number of Pennsylvanians in rural areas say corporate vigilance is not enough - they want government to step up oversight.
"We're taking all the risks up here. We should be afforded the same protections," said Emily Krafjack, a resident of Wyoming County and self-taught expert on pipelines who now works as a county consultant.